New Orleans, LA

In keeping with my Photo of the week motif, I now present you with this week’s photo:

Home on Highway 11, Dec 2005.
Photographer: Gina Cunningham

To submit a photo, send me an e-mail at lewis.cunningham@451press.net with the subject line of New Orleans Photo. In the e-mail attach your photo. Include your name, date of the photo (just month and year is necessary), website you want me to link to, and a description of the photo.

By emailing me the photo, you are explicitly declaring that you are the copyright holder of the photo and that you are giving me permission to post the photo.

I can hot link to your site, or upload the image and link from this site. Tell me your preference.

Thanks,

LewisC

new orleans, photo, image, katrina, slidell

From the DailyKOS on August 29, 2007:

New Orleans: Mission NOT Accomplished

The more I read about Shelley Midura, the more I like her. She is an incredible writer. In this article she skewers just about everyone that needs skewering. She also makes some very good points.

The first point is that the government in New Orleans is fairly busy right now with three primary jobs: Rebuilding the city, Reforming the city government and running the day to day operations of a fairly large city.

In other major cities, item number three is a full-time job for a fully-staffed City Hall and city officials. Imagine trying to accomplish all three of these things with half of city government laid off due to crippling budget cuts.

Keep in mind that as elected officials, we get paid to perform these tasks as we are public servants. The citizens of New Orleans however are going through this painful recovery voluntarily and doing so because of a deep love for the City of New Orleans.

I also hear, way too often, people not understanding why anyone would choose to live behind levees. Forget the fact that much of the country depends on levees to hold back rivers, but also, New Orleans is:

A city that is rebuilding not due to help from the federal government (Who, by the way, just so happens to be the designer, the builder and the owner of the levee system that failed our city), but is rebuilding in spite of government.

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Two questions that I have been asked and have been seeing in forums.

K-Ville is a new series coming in September starring Blake Shields, Cole Hauser, Maximiliano Hernandez, Anthony Anderson, John Carroll Lynch & Tawny Cypress.

K-Ville is also a new name for New Orleans.

Why is New Orleans called K-Ville? It means Katrinaville. I don’t know who first coined the term but it has been in use in New Orleans since not long after Katrina hit.

Technically, I guess it could mean any place inundated by Katrina and that would include a large portion of the gulf coast. I typically hear it referring specifically to New Orleans, though.

A good description that I read some time back is in this article in the Guardian Unlimited, Hell and high water.

Katrina-ville is not just a trailer park. It is also a state of mind. It is a Checkhovian nightmare of bureacracy, corruption and insurance rip-offs that has plagued the region devastated by the storm and slowed reconstruction to a disgraceful crawl. It is of politicians unable to rise to the challenge. It is why New Orleans has still not unveiled a rebuilding plan. It is why $2bn of reconstruction funds have been wasted or stolen. It is the corruption that allowed 1,100 prison inmates to claim $10m in rental relief or saw renovations for an Alabama shelter eventually cost $416,000 per evacuee (more than the cost of a new home each).

Listen to the song Katrinaville by Mike Starling:

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Blake Shields, Cole Hauser, Maximiliano Hernandez, Anthony Anderson, John Carroll Lynch, Tawny Cypress, kville, k-ville, katrinaville, new orleans, louisiana, katrina

Shelley Midura, New Orleans City Council member, recently posted a Katrina 2 year fact sheet. I thought this was a very informational post and wanted to pass it along. The sheet, Katrina Two Years Later Fact Sheet, covers some interesting details.

Based on this fact sheet, Shelley created an open letter to George Bush. I am including the open letter here. Check out the fact sheet also though as the information is a bit more concise. Based on what I have been hearing about Shelley Midura and this open letter, I am thinking this is a person that New Orleans needs. I am glad she is on the city council and I hope she moves on to better things (like Mayor).

Posted: 29 Aug 2007 at 11:17am

An open letter to President George W. Bush:

August 28, 2007

Dear Mr. President:

Thank you for visiting New Orleans for the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the worst federal levee-failure disaster in United States history followed by the worst federal disaster response in United States history. We’re also grateful for the $116 billion federal allocation for the Gulf Coast. That $116 billion has served you well, as your spokesmen often cite it as an indicator of your dedication to our recovery. But, it hasn’t served us as well — it’s not enough, it’s been given grudgingly, and only after our elected officials have had to fight for it. So I feel I must correct the record about you and your administration’s dedication to our recovery and implore you to take action to make things better.

Indeed, you have allocated $116 billion for the Gulf Coast, but that number is misleading. According to the Brookings Institute’s most recent Katrina Index report, at least $75 billion of it was for immediate post-storm relief. Thus only 35% of the total federal dollars allocated is for actual recovery and reconstruction. And of that recovery and reconstruction allocation, only 42% has actually been spent. In fact, while your administration touts “$116 billion” as the amount you have sent to the entire area affected by Katrina and the levee failures, the actual long term recovery dollar amount is only $14.6 billion. This amount is a mere 12% of the entire federal allocation of dollars, billions of which went to corporations such as Halliburton for immediate post-storm cleanup work, instead of to local businesses. Contrast that to the $20.9 billion on infrastructure for Iraq that the Wall Street Journal reported in May 2006 that you have spent, and it’s an astonishing 42% more than you have spent on infrastructure for the post-Katrina Gulf region. The American citizens of the Gulf region do not understand why the federal obligation to rebuilding Iraq is greater than it is for America’s Gulf coast, and more specifically for New Orleans.

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Taking the lead from several of my co-bloggers here at 451Press, I have decided to start a Photo of the Week. The others do a photo of the day but I think I will reserve Sunday as my photo day. If I get several good ones in one week, I may also post a photo on Saturday.

French Quarter, Window of a store, Christmas Day 2005
Photographer: Gina Cunningham

To submit a photo, send me an e-mail at lewis.cunningham@451press.net with the subject line of New Orleans Photo. In the e-mail attach your photo. Include your name, date of the photo (just month and year is necessary), website you want me to link to, and a description of the photo.

By emailing me the photo, you are explicitly declaring that you are the copyright holder of the photo and that you are giving me permission to post the photo.

I can hot link to your site, or upload the image and link from this site. Tell me your preference.

Thanks,

LewisC

new orleans, photo, image

In an effort to talk about something besides Katrina, I figured I would talk about Voodoo Fest.

That’s right. October 26 - October 28, 2007 in New Orleans City Park. It’s the 2007 Voodoo Music Festival. Come and go weekend passes were $100/head. Those have sold out and now there are only limited $115/head tickets left. You can also get a VIP pass if you want to pay for one. Those are currently $450/head and the price is going to increase as the day gets closer.

The line up is amazing. From The Smashing Pumpkins and Rage Against the Machine to Dr John and Dumpstaphunk. The complete line up: Rage Against the Machine, The Smashing Pumpkins, Wilco , Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals, Sinead O’Connor, Kings of Leon, Mute Math,

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I am feeling somewhat melancholy and homesick today. More so than last year. I’m not sure why. Things have gotten better in New Orleans but for some reason I am more depressed this year as the anniversary rolls around. Maybe it’s because two years later and things aren’t further along.

My mom is moving out of her trailer at the end of this month. Housing is outrageous. My nephews have jobs. I have two less siblings this year than I did two years ago. I didn’t think it was possible for New Orleans to have fewer IT jobs than it did several years ago but that is the unfortunate truth.

So, today, I will leave you with two NPR stories. You can follow the links to hear the recordings.

The first is titled: Dear New Orleans: I’m Leaving You. This is the story of a reporter, a non-native, who had adopted New Orleans as her home. A female representative of Generation K. Eve from K-Ville. Maybe that makes her a native.

The story isn’t so much about her as it is about the sadness and the crime permeating the city two years after Katrina. The big easy that is less easy. Her feelings about New Orleans seem to be a lot like mine:

They don’t understand that I’m in love. I talk to friends about New Orleans like a dysfunctional romance. I gush over it one day, then call up bawling and heartbroken the next. Why can’t it change? Stop being self-destructive and violent? It has so much potential.

I don’t live in New Orleans anymore. I don’t know if I ever will. But I am still a local. I always will be. There is something about New Orleans that forces that on you. Even through the embarrassment of re-electing Nagin, I will forever be a child born in Mercy Hospital.

The reporter, Eve, is leaving New Orleans after a friend being murdered, after friends being mugged, after being mugged herself. I wish her the best. Go to the link above and listen to the audio. It’s worth a few minutes.

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Fox and NOLA.com have gotten together and you can watch the k-ville premier right now. Go to the NOLA Entertainment section to see it.

Spoiler Alert: I am discussing the new K-Ville show on Fox and I have seen the ending. If you have not seen the premiere (the link above) and don’t want to be spoiled, do not continue reading. You’ve been warned!

Unless you’ve been under a rock (or have absolutely no interest in New Orleans topics), you have heard of K-Ville. If you haven’t heard, it’s a cop drama in New Orleans about two years after Katrina hit. New Orleans now. Crime drama. Just like real life. Only here the bad guys are rich white women and mercenaries that work at casinos. And I thought there was enough crime with the scum bag murderers, gang bangers, dopers, pimps, etc.

From the blurb on fox.com:

From writer and executive producer Jonathan Lisco (“NYPD Blue,” “The District”) comes K-VILLE, a heroic police drama set – and filmed – in New Orleans. Two years after Katrina, parts of the city are still in chaos, but hope has emerged. Battling an upsurge of violence, understaffing of police forces and a lack of crime labs and other facilities, the cops who remain in the New Orleans Police Department have courage to burn and a passion to reclaim and rebuild their city.

MARLIN BOULET (Anthony Anderson) is a brash, wry, in-your-face veteran of the NOPD’s Felony Action Squad, the specialized unit that targets the most-wanted criminals. Even when his partner deserted him during the storm, Boulet held his post, spending days in the water saving lives and keeping order. Now, two years later, he’s unapologetic about bending the rules when it comes to collaring bad guys. The stakes are too high, and the city too fragile, for him to do things by the book.

Boulet’s new partner, TREVOR COBB (Cole Hauser), was a soldier in Afghanistan before joining the NOPD. He’s tough and committed, but if he’s less than comfortable with Boulet’s methods, it’s because he’s harboring a dark secret. Cobb has come to New Orleans seeking redemption, but redemption can be dangerous. Will Boulet be able to trust him? Will Cobb’s past endanger them both?

Rounding out the crew are wisecracking JEFF “GLUE BOY” GOODEN (Blake Shields), the team’s comic relief; tough-as-nails GINGER “LOVE TAP” LeBEAU (Tawny Cypress), the only female on the squad; and CAPTAIN JAMES EMBRY (John Carroll Lynch), who wrangles the eclectic personalities of his squad with equal parts humor and tenacity.

Through its no-holds-barred crime stories and dramatic personal stories, this intriguing series will take viewers from the Victorian mansions of the Garden District to the rubble of the Lower 9th Ward.

K-VILLE, executive-produced by Lisco and Craig Silverstein (BONES, “Standoff”), is produced by 20th Century Fox Television. Deran Sarafian (HOUSE, “CSI”) directed the pilot.

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Obama’s got a plan. I’ll try not to be cynical and give him the benefit of the doubt. He’s a fairly new politician so maybe he actually means what he says.

From the NY Times, Obama’s Plan to Restore New Orleans. His planned approach is a welcome one:

The Gulf Coast restoration, Mr. Obama said, has been weighed down by red tape that has kept billions of dollars from reaching Louisiana communities. As president, he said, he would streamline the bureaucracy, strengthen law enforcement to curb a rise in crime and immediately close the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet in order to restore wetlands to protect against storms.

As is his plan to appoint a czar (let’s not call it an overseer):

Mr. Obama, according to details provided by his campaign, said he would appoint a chief coordinating officer to “cut through bureaucratic obstacles” and a chief financial officer “to minimize waste and abuse.” Only about 40 percent of the money allocated by FEMA to rebuild schools, hospitals and other infrastructure has reached Louisiana communities, he said, which could be improved upon with better coordination.

I honestly think that one is the most significant.

He also wants to start a drug enforcement agency in New Orleans and start a “Cops for Katrina” program to hire more police and prosecutors. I wonder how all of this will be paid?

LewisC

new orleans, obama, politics, katrina

As we all know, Ray Nagin believes that the New Orleans murder rate is part of the city’s “brand”.

“It’s not good for us, but it also keeps the New Orleans brand out there, and it keeps people thinking about our needs and what we need to bring this community back,” he said. “Sure it hurts, but we have to keep working every day to make the city better.”

Well, as reported as that was, what is more disturbing is how the murder rate is viewed across the world. New Orleans’ life blood is tourism and a “brand” of murder is not good for anyone. Stories are cropping up across all of the many media about the crime rate.

From MSNBC, New Orleans murder rate on the rise again:

Last year, university researchers conducted an experiment in which police fired 700 blank rounds in a New Orleans neighborhood in a single afternoon. No one called to report the gunfire.

From Medical News Today, Already High Murder Rate Increased In New Orleans After Katrina:

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Here’s something I have never heard of, read beans can make you sick. I ran across this article, Why Red Beans And Rice Can Be Nauseating. I knew red beans could make you fart and if you eat too much it’s like a fiber bomb but I didn’t know it could literally make you sick.

According to the article:

Scientists have discovered how lectins, a family of proteins believed to be a natural insecticide that is abundant in undercooked legumes and grains, can make you feel temporarily miserable.

I searched around to see what a lectin is. Lectins are carbohydrate-binding proteins or glycoproteins which are highly specific for their sugar moieties. Yeah, that didn’t help me either.

Have you heard of ricin? It was used by the Russians to kill a spy. They poked him with a special umbrella and it injected ricin into him. He died shortly after. Ricin comes from the castor bean and is highly toxic. Apparently, under cooked read beans can have something of the same effect.

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Kim left this as a comment but I thought it was good enough to post as entry by itself. Alas, I will not be there. I will be in Tampa. Blech.

The second annual Rising Tide conference will be held August 24-26, 2007, at the New Orleans Yacht Club. This is a NOLA blogger-organized and supported conference featuring speakers, panels, breakout sessions, and other dialogs on the future of the city of New Orleans.

This year’s emphasis is on ground-level, grass-roots efforts. It has become clear to those of us in south Louisiana that we will have to watch the watchmen, as well as take the upper hand in setting the city back on track. To that end, there will be presentations on local politics and how to influence them, making civics sexy, sustainability, levee engineering, and media outreach.

The keynote speaker is Dave Zirin, author of Welcome to the Terrordome, published by Haymarket Press, a columnist for SLAM Magazine, a regular contributor to the Nation Magazine, and a regular op-ed writer for the Los Angeles Times. Timothy Ruppert, president of the Louisiana Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers, will give a comprehensive report on the status of our levee protection two years after the failure of the federal levees brought catastrophe to New Orleans. Matt McBride of Fix the Pumps will present via video conference. Panelists will include community activists Karen Gadbois of Squandered Heritage, Bart Everson of B.Rox, and Peter Athas of Adrastos, muckraking blogger Mark Moseley of Your Right Hand Thief, New Orleans political sage Michael Duplantier and author Joshua Clark (Heart Like Water).

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The Houston Chronicle had a article last week, Church archivists fill gaps in New Orleans’ history. The article is a little slice of life in how Katrina is still impacting people’s lives.

Basically, the story is about how the archivists are the custodians of the church’s memory. They are trying to restore church documents that were soaked during the flood. Marriage certificates, baptisms, etc. All the stuff that make up the minutia of people’s lives.

These are the historical records of New Orleans. The church was the official source of records for many years. These records ARE the history of New Orleans. And there are millions of that need to be restored.

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On August 29, from 10am to 4pm, the convention center will be the site of an event involving prominent business, civic and entertainment organizations. The intent is to mobilize Americans in the hope that it will force the government to begin a true reconstruction along the lines of the Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan was the US government dedicated rebuilding of Europe after WWII.

I hope it works but I don’t have much faith in the US Government doing anything for New Orleans. They are wiling to spend $1 trillion dollars (the current estimate of what the Irag war will cost us), but getting a few billion to rebuild New Orleans just seems to be out of reach.

“Enough is enough!” said Taylor, during the Essence Music Festival in New Orleans. “It’s the shame of the nation,” she said before tens of thousands gathered in the Superdome, “that the people of New Orleans and

the Gulf Coast have been abandoned and are suffering without the most basic necessary supports while our tax dollars are directed toward war.”

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Justice has been served in a racism case that was watched across the US. In 2003, incoming District Attorney Eddie Jordan, who is black, fired over 50 white employees and replaced them with black employees. In 2005, a court found the DA guilty of violating the employees’ civil rights.

Jordan appealed, and just this week, the appeals court rejected all points of the appeal and said that Jordan must pay almost US$ 4 million to the defendants and pay court costs for the appeals. The original case found that Jordan’s office must pay back pay and damages (minimal from the looks of it). With the appeal, interest has accrued and that’s bumped the dollar amount up.

Since Jordan was sued as the N.O. DA, the tax payers will have to pay the money. That part of it sucks but I am glad this instance of racism was brought to light and that the fired employees get back pay. I think they should also get their jobs back, Eddie Jordan’s replacements should be fired and Eddie impeached for racism. La doesn’t have a stellar record of keeping crooks out of office though.

Racism from the block New Orleans politicos shouldn’t surprise anyone. Nagin and his “Chocolate City” comments were the shot heard round the world. Where is Rev Jackson? Where is Sharpton? Where is the NAACP? Shouldn’t all of these “fighters for equality and justice for all” be cheering this verdict? Or are they bigots and racists?

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